Slime on Kelp Growlines ID'ed as "Diatom Hotels"

[lindsay_olsen]

@azure_cygler, owner/operator of Rhody Wild Sea Gardens recently shared with me some interesting photos from her farm. Her lines were covered with a brown slime this spring, and she sent it off to be analyzed. The scientists Dr. Lucie Maranda and Hongjie Wang at URI who examined the specimen under the microscope determined that it was a form of diatom hotel! Here's what they said:

The hairy stuff is mainly made of tube-dwelling diatoms, which are either genus Berkeleya or the genus Navicula. You can imagine each small unit from the first photo is a diatom body, and they are living in the tube hotel, which can protect them from zooplankton grazing. You can also see a higher resolution version in figure 2, which is a short tube with a few cells. In the entanglement of diatoms, you can see triangular diatoms (Licmophora) in figure 2 and a chain of diatom Rhabdonema in Figure 3. Dr. Maranda also mentioned that tube-dwelling diatoms live in nutrient-rich surface environments and can travel with tidal movement. 

 

[michelle_stephens]

@lindsay_olsen - Wow!

[jill_pegnataro]

@lindsay_olsen -

Thanks for sharing Linsday! We get similar bio fouling on our site in the Thimble Islands.